1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a multifunction multiport slider valve, in particular for gaseous media, including a valve casing. The valve casing exhibits on a first longitudinal side a sealed connection plane for fluidic supply lines, control lines, user lines and ventilation lines and which is furnished with a support plate including corresponding connection channels. A valve sleeve is disposed centered relative to the valve center longitudinal axis. The valve sleeve is furnished with annular seals, coordinated to each passage channel. The valve sleeve is furnished with a valve slider disposed coaxially to the valve sleeve. A casing bore, running parallel to the valve center axis, is disposed at a second longitudinal side. The second longitudinal side extends parallel and opposite to the first longitudinal side. Cross bores, directed perpendicular to the valve center longitudinal axis, run from the casing bore and adjoin at the second longitudinal side. At least the casing bore can be blocked off.
Such fluidic multiport slider valves are constructed and formed for a fixed number of functions. An expansion of the number of functions is therefore no longer possible after finished production of the slider valve.
Such a fluidic multiport slider valve is known from the European Patent A2-0,198,234 with a valve casing, which exhibits a flat connector plane with sealing plate for a standard component valve support plate, called Europa plate or ISO plate, and which is furnished at the oppositely disposed longitudinal side with a further connector plane for solenoid valves. Such a 5/2-way valve or a 5/3-way valve takes already into consideration that the connector openings in the support plate are unchangeably fixed and in addition are axially increasingly staggered in the two axle directions of the valve and that, in addition, the individual pressure chambers are to be switched substantially without crossover during the switching of the valves. The known solution evolves from the assumption that such valves are constructed axially relatively long and that the construction of the valve sleeve is particularly complicated and comprised of a plurality of plugged-together plastic parts. Correspondingly, production, mounting and assembly of the valve are particularly expensive. In addition, the requirement for a maximum passage of fluids is not or only unsatisfactorily resolved. However, a 5/3-way valve function is not possible in one and the same valve casing in case of the 5/2-way valve formed by the known multiport valve. In order to avoid these recognized disadvantages, it has been proposed in the past that a casing bore be disposed parallel to the valve center longitudinal axis, where cross bores, directed perpendicular to the valve center longitudinal axis, run from the casing bore and join at the second longitudinal side, of which bores at least the casing bore can be blocked off. Cover groove is milled into a valve cover for this purpose and a sealing ring disc is inserted between a casing intermediate ring and the valve cover. Two lower control channels can be disposed axially staggered relative to the two upper control channels such that in each case only the lower control channels or the upper control channels are connected via the corresponding cover grooves at the casing recess based on a rotation by 180 degrees, of the casing cover together with the respective sealing ring discs, while simultaneously the other control channels are blocked based on the sealing ring discs.
Such a system, however, can only be handled with difficulty by the customer acquiring the valve and it is difficult to install and it provides only a switching from the lower to the upper control channel. In addition, it is not possible with this conventional valve to perform the mounting and demounting of such casing covers at the customer location, because this could impair the functional capabilities of these conventional slider valves.